Can we all agree by now that the allegedly thoughtful Tony La Russa, who maybe you've heard is a lawyer and who walks the earth cogitating profoundly on such matters as lineup construction and puppies, is really just an all-around paste-eating dumbass?

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La Russa and Albert Pujols will attend Glenn Beck's "Restoring America's Hymen" rally on Saturday, Pujols as an honoree of some sort. Here's what the manager had to say on Thursday:

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, scheduled to introduce Pujols, insisted Thursday that he and Pujols are attending only after receiving assurances that the event is not a thinly disguised political rally.

Some liberal critics have portrayed the three-hour event as a platform for the conservative Tea Party movement.

"I made it clear when we were approached: I said, 'If it's political, I wouldn't even approach Albert with it.' I don't want to be there if it's political," La Russa said.

[...]

"I made the point several times: What is this about?" La Russa said Thursday, noting an understanding that invitations were 'sent out across party lines, different disciplines, all kinds of stuff.

"I don't know who's going to be there, who's going to accept it. But the gist of the day is not political. I think it's a really good concept, actually."

Pujols? Whatever. It's his journey, and we're all free to choose whichever weeping cathode huckster we want to follow off a cliff. But you're either a liar or a dupe if you insist, as La Russa does, that "the gist" of an event devoted to "restoring" America's honor — one that will be held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial 47 years to the day after MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, one that Glenn Beck himself says will be the moment "we reclaim the civil rights movement" — has nothing whatsoever to do with politics. I don't know what La Russa's personal politics are beyond being staunchly pro-kitten, and I don't particularly care. But I do know that he has carved out a reputation for himself as baseball's leading intellectual, largely on the basis of a few million pitching changes, a ballet t-shirt, and a J.D. he might as well have pulled off the back of a cereal box, and that he has professed far too much arrant dumbassery over the years to deserve the genius label anymore, if he ever did. Since we're all going around reclaiming things these days, how about we start with that?